How women and youth led a digital-driven progressive victory in Poland
Ewelina Kycia
Polish democracy activist
On 15 October 2023, people across Europe anxiously tuned into the results of Poland’s parliamentary elections. After eight years of right-wing rule, there was a lot at stake: under the incumbent ruling party PiS (Law and Justice), Poland had undergone drastic shifts, shifts that had tested Poland’s democracy. On the timeline of social progress, the Eastern European country had regressed in recent years. Women's rights were severely curtailed; Polish women were dying in hospitals due to lack of access to abortions. Poland's public media, meanwhile, had become a propaganda platform for the ruling party – and the LGBTIA community once again became a target for hate attacks, fueled by homophobic statements in the public media.
But something had begun to change. Even as the political space was being dominated by anti-democratic, right-wing discourse and ideas, a fire had begun to smolder amongst socially engaged citizens standing up for democratic values. Eight uninterrupted years of regressive policies by PiS drove new voters to the polls in 2023, people who barely remembered Poland before PiS. Their votes would determine the outcome of the elections.
That is not to say, however, that these elections were easy – or even fair. The opposition parties featuring Koalicja Obywatelska of the Civic Platform, Trzecia Droga of Third Way, and Lewica of The Left, were severely disadvantaged compared to the ruling party, during the entire election campaign. Every program launched on public television praised the government and belittled opposition parties by discrediting their image in the public's eyes. PiS expanded the budget for public media to 2 billion zlotys (around €465 million) for 2023, a considerable amount given that the budget from 2017 - 2022 totaled €7 billion zlotys. They bought up local media channels, reaching residents of smaller towns and cities by saturating their local information sources with the same biased narratives found on public television, demonizing opposition parties in ever more targeted ways.
On top of that, PiS sought to further its campaign through a referendum on election day, which presented voters with biased questions, such as: "Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, by the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?" By holding a referendum on election day, PiS wanted to seal a narrative about its values. (The referendum turnout was only 40%, however, rendering it invalid.)
The complete absence of a level playing field during these elections made their outcome – the dethronement of PiS after nearly a decade in government – even more astonishing, as well as encouraging for progressive parties and movements all across Europe. The overall turnout in Poland’s 2023 parliamentary elections was 74.4%. This was the highest turnout in over 30 years, even surpassing the turnout during the 1989 elections, at the end of communism.
Interestingly, what tipped the scales here was the massive turnout of women and young voters. Thanks to these voters, PiS – even with such strong cards as they held – failed to win the elections. The turnout among these groups was a major departure from previous elections, meanwhile. During the previous parliamentary elections in 2019, only 46.4% of eligible voters between 18 and 29 cast their ballots, a low turnout compared with other age groups. But in 2023, youth turnout jumped to 68.8%. And for women, whose turnout in 2019 was still 61.5%, the numbers reached 73.7%. These figures were greater than anything predicted by experts –– just weeks before, polls indicated only 50% of women planned to vote.
What changed for women and young people, during those days and weeks leading up to the elections? Research looking to answer that question has found that the increased turnout was largely down to social campaigns online. One such campaign was launched by the Women's Strike, an organization that has for years been fighting to introduce legal abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy in Poland. On October 22, 2020, Poland’s Constitutional Court ruled nearly all abortions unconstitutional, with the exceptions of pregnancy due to rape and cases in which the pregnancy poses a threat to the woman's life. This undid previous legislation, which had also allowed abortion in cases of fetal damage or defects. As a result of the 2020 ruling, and the anti-democratic political climate in Poland, doctors had become afraid to carry out terminations, even when the pregnancy did threaten the life of a patient, and women began to die in hospitals.
Women’s Strike implored Polish women to take to the streets – and Poland’s women responded in great numbers. “This government will overthrow women!,” was the line that quickly became their slogan, harnessing growing feelings of outrage at what was happening in their country. Their anger was then captured, channeled and amplified through the efforts of various grassroots organizations in Poland: these organizations created pages, video ads; they published articles, comments, posts on social media. A website was set up to educate voters, listing candidates’ stances on abortion rights in a searchable function based on voter’s districts.
Women’s Strike treated the 2023 election as an opportunity for their most important protest yet: voting the government out of office. Their plan worked: the variety and volume of messages going around before the elections heightened emotions around the issue and helped bring more women to the polls. But they were not the only campaign specifically targeting women. Another was launched by NGO Wschód and involved a video ad called We were already quiet – in which women are seen giving the middle finger to the ruling party, whilst encouraging other women to vote. A third campaign made use of the persuasiveness of influencers and celebrities: it involved many different Polish celebrities posting videos on their social media, in which they explained their reasons for going to the polls this election. Importantly, these videos were not branded with any logos or graphics. Although coördinated within a single campaign, they were authentic videos, uploaded to the profiles of actresses, models and journalists by themselves.
Another strong campaign was the result of the efforts of the Basta Foundation, founded by Bart Staszewski, a well-known LGBTIA activist. With the aid of small donors, who made it possible to produce these materials, the NGO created a series of content to distribute online. Five fictional audio recordings simulated scenarios in which a far-right political party is in charge, highlighting the agenda of the party in a novel way. The recordings went viral on social media during the following days, further showing the power of digital tools to rally support for progressive causes at this moment in time. While the anger of women and young progressive people clearly existed already, as a latent force, it was these campaigns that channeled their feelings into a movement.
A report published after the elections by the Polish Batory Foundation, an NGO founded by the American-Hungarian philanthropist George Soros, confirmed that the turnout needed for the opposition to win was mostly created online. The report found that the large number of campaigns and activities in Poland during the weeks leading up to the elections – mostly on the Internet – had created a strong impression that these elections were important and that it was vital that everyone should take part in them. A new social norm, so to speak, was created in this way. It is difficult to imagine something like this happening via a traditional, top-down campaign. It was their grassroots nature that made these campaigns so successful: numerous independent organizations created the campaigns that best reached their audiences. The internet makes this possible – and therein lies the potential of digital organizing: it engages the people themselves.
Image credits:
1. “We were already silent” - Wschód Initiative, Warsaw, 13th Sep 2023.
Photo: Konrad Skotnicki
2. Women’s Strike, Warsaw, 3rd Oct 2016. Photo: Katarzyna Pierzchała
